Eliza de Feuillide, Jane Austen's "outlandish cousin"

Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin': The Life and Letters of Eliza de Feuillide. Eliza to her cousin Philly Walter, 17 January 1786: ". . .the purpose of the abovementioned Journey [to the spa town of Bagnères, France] has been entirely answered, & your outlandish Cousin's Health & good Looks perfectly restored." [1] Image source: Abebooks.com

This post is a continuation of Was Jane Austen's aunt a sex worker?: Jane Austen at Home, part 1.

In 1777, 15-year-old Betsy Hancock was taken by her mother Phila to Europe. Betsy had received the typical education of a girl of her class, focussing on accomplishments that would enhance her marital prospects: she learned to play the harp and harpsichord, dance, ride, write in an elegant hand, do simple sums (sufficient to oversee the management of the household), read and speak French, and act in plays, something she enjoyed especially keenly. Perhaps she understood even at a young age that the ability to hold center stage and compel fascination was a key skill for women to develop in a society where other sorts of power—economic, political—were denied them.

The main reason for the European journey was economy: it was cheaper to live on the continent than in London. Phila and Betsy visited Germany and Belgium before reaching Paris in 1779. Their social introductions there were smoothed by Sir John Lambert, an Anglo-French baronet and friend (or "friend"?) of the widowed Phila. It may have been Sir John who introduced Phila and Betsy, who now called herself Eliza, to Captain Jean François Capot de Feuillide. De Feuillide claimed, without evident basis, to be a count. Eliza was apparently represented to de Feuillide as a rich heiress with connections to, and perhaps additional expectations from, "Lord Hastings."

Both representations were exaggerations at best. De Feuillide, an officer in Queen Marie Antoinette's own regiment, had not been ennobled. He was the son of a lawyer who was the mayor of Nérac, about halfway between the cities of Bordeaux and Toulouse in southwest France. De Feuillide had received the royal grant of 5,000 acres of marshland near Nérac tax-free on the stipulation that he would have it drained and cultivated.

Eliza had received the enormous gift of £10,000 from Warren Hastings, the Governor-General of India and almost certainly her biological father, which enabled her (and her mother) to live comfortably. However, the money was under the control of two trustees, one of them Jane Austen's father, and Eliza only had access to the interest, amounting to £500 a year—a substantial sum, but nowhere near the capital de Feuillide needed to carry out his land reclamation plans. According to the lawyer John Woodson, who was Hastings' brother-in-law and the other trustee of Eliza's fortune, swamps weren't the only thing the de Feuillide family wanted to drain. Woodson wrote to Hastings that Phila "seems inclined to give up to them the sum which was settled on her for life. . .they seem already desirous of draining the mother of every shilling she has." [2] No doubt Eliza's fortune, as well as her beauty, were a strong attraction for de Feuillide.

Phila, though, perhaps influenced by the faux-Comte's title, was apparently all for the match, and in 1781 the 19-year-old Eliza married the 31-year-old de Feuillide. She wrote her cousin Philadelphia Walter about her marriage that "it was a step I took much less from my own judgment than that of those whose councils and opinions I am the most bound to follow."

My situation is everyways agreeable, certain of never being separated from my dear Mama whose presence enhances every blessing I enjoy, equally sure of my husband's affections, mistress of an easy fortune with the prospect of a very ample one, add to these the advantages of rank & title, & a numerous and brilliant acquaintance, amongst whom I can flatter myself I have some sincere friends, & you will unite with me in saying I have reason to be thankful to Providence for the lot fallen to my share. [3]

Eliza Hancock de Feuillide, date unknown, possibly copied from the 1780 miniature below.

In 1785 Eliza became pregnant, and de Feuillide wanted the child to be born in England. Given the just-concluded war (1778-1783) and historical antipathy between France and Britain, this was an unusual wish for a French landowner. However, the probable motive was to encourage Warren Hastings to recognize the baby as his grandchild, particularly if it was a boy; the hope was that money would follow recognition. In the end Eliza and Phila seem to have miscalculated either the term of Eliza's pregnancy or the travel time to England. On 25 June 1786 the baby—a boy, named Hastings as still further encouragement for acknowledgement by his grandfather—was born in the port of Calais, before the women could make the crossing to Dover.

Phila, Eliza and Hastings continued their journey to England as soon as they were able to travel, and in December 1786 they came to Steventon Rectory. Jane's mother described the visit in a letter to her niece Philadelphia Walter:

We are now happy in the company of my Sister Hancock[,] Madame de Feuillide & the little Boy. . .The little Boy grows very fat, he is very fair & very pretty; I don't think your Aunt at all alter'd in any respect, Madame is grown quite lively, when a child we used to think her too grave. We have borrowed a Piano-Forte, and she plays to us every day; on Tuesday we are to have a snug little dance in our parlour, just our own children, nephew & nieces. . .quite a family party. [4]

It was the first time Eliza had visited since Jane was an infant. Jane was now 11 and "much impressed by Eliza's charm and cosmopolitan vivacity." [5]

But in this and subsequent visits Jane may also have noticed some other, less appealing aspects of her cousin. Eliza may have been a partial model for the character of Camilla Stanley in Jane's 1792 story "Catharine, or the Bower":

. . .She was elegant in her appearance, rather handsome, and naturally not deficient in abilities; but those years which ought to have been spent in the attainment of useful knowledge and mental improvement, had been all bestowed in learning drawing, Italian and music, more especially the latter, and she now united to these accomplishments, an understanding unimproved by reading and a mind totally devoid either of taste or judgement. Her temper was by nature good, but unassisted by reflection, she had neither patience under disappointment, nor could sacrifice her own inclinations to promote the happiness of others. All her ideas were towards the elegance of her appearance, the fashion of her dress, and the admiration she wished them to excite. She professed a love of books without reading, was lively without wit, and generally good humoured without merit. Such was Camilla Stanley; and Catharine, who was prejudiced by her appearance, and who from her solitary situation was ready to like anyone, th' her understanding and judgement would not otherwise have been easily satisfied, felt almost convinced when she saw her, that Miss Stanley would be the very companion she wanted. . .She therefore attached herself to Camilla from the first day of her arrival. [6]

Shades of Isabella Thorpe and another Catherine, Catherine Morland, in Northanger Abbey.

Jane Austen's manuscript of "Catharine, or the Bower." Image source: The British Library on Pinterest

Eliza has also been seen as a partial model for the manipulative and unscrupulous title character of Lady Susan, and for the pretty, vivacious, harp-playing, pleasure-loving Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park.

During her Christmas visit the following year Eliza took a leading role in the Austen family's theatricals, arranged and managed by 22-year-old James, the eldest Austen sibling. The first play was Susanna Centlivre's The Wonder: A Woman Keeps A Secret (1714). In the play, set in Lisbon, we learn that Isabella is about to be married against her will to a much older but very rich aristocrat. The Wonder is an eyebrow-raising choice, given that both Aunt Phila and Eliza had married older men for motives other than love.

Title page of Susanna Centlivre's The Wonder: A Woman Keeps A Secret, Fifth Edition, 1756. Image source: HathiTrust.org

Isabella: . . .the thoughts of a husband is as terrible to me as the sight of a hobgoblin. . .to be forc'd into the arms of an idiot, a sneaking, snivling, drivling, avaricious fool, who has neither person to please the eye, sense to charm the ear, nor generosity to supply those defects. Ah, Inis! What pleasant lives women lead in England, where duty wears no fetter but inclination: The custom of our country inslaves us from our very cradles, first to our parents, next to our husbands; and when Heaven is so kind to rid us of both these, our brothers still usurp authority, and expect a blind obedience from us; so that maids, wives, or widows, we are little better than slaves to the tyrant Man. [7]

Eliza played Violante, who has had a trust of £20,000 settled on her by her grandfather. Her father has lied to her about the terms of the trust and is scheming to send her to a monastery and appropriate her money to his own use. Again, the character's situation implies an uncomfortable parallel to Eliza's real-life circumstances.

The dialogue in the play is also bawdy at times—a perhaps surprising choice for a household whose head was a clergyman, and which had two sons, James and his 16-year-old brother Henry, planning to make careers in the church. Here's an exchange between Violante and the Scottish Colonel Britton that takes place in her house. Isabella has sent a message for the Colonel to meet her there, but he thinks that Violante is Isabella, and that she seeks an assignation:

(Enter Violante veil'd)

Colonel Britton: . . .I am come to obey your Ladyship's commands.

Violante: Are you sure of that, Colonel?

Colonel: If you not be very unreasonable indeed, Madam. A man is but a man. (Takes her hand, and kisses it.)

Violante: Nay, we have no time for compliments, Colonel.

Colonel Britton: I understand you, Madam—Montre moy votre Chambre [show me to your room].

Violante: Nay, nay, hold Colonel, my bed-chamber is not to be enter'd without a certain purchase.

Colonel: [Aside] Purchase! Humph, this is some kept mistress, I suppose; who industriously lets her leisure hours. [To Violante] Look ye, Madam, you must consider we soldiers are not overstock'd with money—but we make ample satisfaction in Love. . .Then prithee use a conscience, and I'll try if my pocket can come up to your price. (Puts his hand into his pocket.)

Violante: Nay, don't give your self the trouble of drawing your purse Colonel, my design is level'd at your person, if that be at your own disposal.

Colonel: Ay, that it is Faith Madam, and I'll settle it as firmly upon thee—

Violante: As law can do it. [8]

In Mansfield Park, 24-year-old eldest son Tom Bertram plans a private performance of Elizabeth Inchbald's Lovers' Vows (1798), a translation and adaptation of German playwright August von Kotzebue's Das Kind der Liebe (Love Child). This is improper for several reasons. Not only is the subject of the play risqué—it concerns a son born out of wedlock—but for its actors it will bring about, in the words of Thomas Gisborne's Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (1797), "the unrestrained familiarity with the other sex which inevitably results from being joined with them in the drama." [9] 

Title page of the first edition of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. Image source: Jane Austen's House

Tom will later come to rue his plan because it brought together in "dangerous intimacy" the handsome and charming Henry Crawford with Tom's sister Maria, playing the roles of the illegitimate son Frederick and his unmarried mother Agatha, a "fallen woman" with whom he is tenderly reunited. The rehearsals also bring together Tom's brother Edmund with Henry's alluring sister Mary, as the virtuous clergyman Anhalt and the woman he secretly loves, the flirtatious Amelia. [10]

As Lionel Trilling has pointed out,

In touching one another or making love to one another on the stage these four are not adopting a pose, but are, on the contrary, expressing their real feelings. The impropriety lies in the fact that they are not acting, but are finding an indirect means to gratify desires which are illicit and should have been contained. [11]

Title page of Lovers' Vows by Elizabeth Inchbald, 1798. Image source: Internet Archive

Maria Bertram will later truly become a "fallen woman" when she abandons her husband Mr. Rushworth and runs away with Henry Crawford. And Edmund will fall in love with (and come perilously close to proposing to) the selfish and amoral Mary. Theatricals are shown to be romantically dangerous indeed.

Like Amelia in Lovers' Vows, Eliza was notoriously flirtatious; James Austen's son later wrote that both his Uncle Henry and his father were "fascinated" by her. James may have signaled how dazzled by Eliza he was by writing an epilogue to The Wonder, spoken by Eliza as Violante:

Now forced to quit their long held usurpation,
These men all wise, these Lords of the Creation!
To our superior rule themselves submit,
Slaves to our charms, & vassals to our wit.
We can with ease their ev'ry sense beguile,
And melt their Resolutions with a smile. [12]

Eliza Hancock (later de Feuillide), by an unknown French artist, 1780. ". . .I send my picture in miniature done here to my uncle G. Austen. . .It is reckoned here like what I am at present. The dress is quite the present fashion & what I usually wear." [13] Image source (reversed): Miss Jane Austen

In 1787 the beguilement of James and Henry by their older, married Cousin Eliza seems to have been clearly apparent to their 12-year-old sister Jane. In "Henry and Eliza: a novel," a story which Jane wrote around this time, Eliza is the name of a foundling discovered by Sir George and Lady Harcourt and raised as their daughter. (Was Jane somehow aware that Aunt Phila's husband was not her Cousin Eliza's father?) Despite being raised to have "a Love of Virtue & a Hatred of Vice," at 18 Eliza is caught stealing £50 and sent away. She winds up as a companion to "the Dutchess of F." and her daughter Lady Harriet:

Mr Cecil, the Lover of Lady Harriet, being often with the family was often with Eliza. A mutual Love took place & Cecil having declared his first, prevailed on Eliza to consent to a private union, which was easy to be effected, as the dutchess's chaplain being very much in love with Eliza himself, would, they were certain, do anything to oblige her.

The Dutchess & Lady Harriet being engaged one evening to an assembly, they took the opportunity of their absence & were united by the enamoured Chaplain.

When the Ladies returned, their amazement was great at finding instead of Eliza the following Note.

"Madam"

"We are married & gone."

"Henry & Eliza Cecil." [14]

The couple flee and go to live in France. It's difficult not to see the smitten "Henry," the captivating "Eliza," and "the enamoured Chaplain" as comically exaggerated versions of Henry, Eliza, and James.

Jane Austen's manuscript of "Henry and Eliza." Image source: Bodleian Library, Oxford

Just 18 months after Eliza's 1787 Christmas visit the French Revolution erupted. Eliza, who had been dividing her time between France and England, travelled to London with her mother and son just before the storming of the Bastille. They remained in England, while, apart from a few weeks' visit to England in the spring of 1792, Eliza's husband stayed in France; landowners who fled were branded as émigres and their estates were seized.

During the Reign of Terror, the "Comte" de Feuillide would discover that pretending to be an aristocrat had unfortunate consequences. In February 1794 he was arrested by the Committee for Public Safety, and shortly after his arrest was sent to the guillotine. Eliza's mother had died in 1792 of breast cancer; Eliza was now orphaned, widowed, and a single mother. She had just turned 32.

After waiting through the year-long mourning period, in 1795 Henry Austen proposed to Eliza. He was now 24 and a lieutenant in the Oxfordshire Militia. She turned him down; whatever her liking for him, a junior officer's pay was little incentive to matrimony. As she later wrote her cousin Philly Walter of a higher-ranking and richer officer, "I beg you will send Captn. Anderson to me with all speed for his £100,000 will suit me wonderfully well[. It is] indeed very unfair in such a disinterested being as yourself [to ma]ke such conquests, you ought to leave them to those females who like myself have a great relish for all the pretty things that are not to be had without plenty of cash." [15]

In the spring of 1795 James Austen's wife of three years, Anne Mathew Austen, died suddenly, leaving him as the single father of a daughter, Jane-Anna-Elizabeth (known in the family as Anna). A single father with a daughter, a single mother with a son: it must have seemed a matter of course for James to propose to Eliza, which he did in 1796.

James Austen, date unknown. Image source: Jane Austen's House

But Eliza was less than enthusiastic about becoming a rural clergyman's wife. She wrote to Philly Walter on 13 December,

. . .in spite of all your conjectures and belief, I do assert the preliminaries are so far from settled that I do not believe the parties ever will come together, not however that they have quarrelled, but one of them cannot bring her mind to give up dear liberty, and yet dearer flirtation—after a few months stay in the country she sometimes thinks it possible to undertake sober matrimony, but a few weeks stay in London convinces her how little the state suits her taste. [16]

James must have gotten the message sooner than Eliza realized. In November he had become engaged to Mary Lloyd, a longtime Austen family friend; they celebrated their marriage in mid-January 1797. Mary Lloyd Austen apparently never forgave Eliza for attracting James' romantic interest. Years later one of Anna's daughters wrote that Mary

would neither go to [Eliza's] house nor receive her at Steventon—I believe the ci-devant Countess, who was an extremely pretty woman, was a great flirt, and during her brief widowhood flirted with all her Steventon cousins, our Grandfather inclusive, which was more than his after wife could stand or could ever forgive—and I think it is very probable the he hesitated between the fair Eliza and Miss Mary Lloyd. I can testify that to the last days of her life my Grandmother continued to dislike and speak ill of her. [17]

As we've seen, the hesitation was on Eliza's side, not James'.

Henry, meanwhile, on the rebound from his rebuff by Eliza, had engaged himself to Mary Pearson, the daughter of a naval officer, in early 1796. But in the fall of that year, as it was becoming apparent that James and Eliza would likely never marry, Mary Pearson broke off her engagement with Henry. He turned to Eliza for consolation—but could could she have been the cause? Perhaps Mary discovered that Henry was still carrying a torch for his beautiful cousin. On 7 November Eliza wrote to Philly,

Our cousin Henry Austen has been in town: he looks thin & ill—I hear his late intended is a most intolerable flirt, and reckoned to give herself great airs—The person who mentioned this to me says she is a pretty wicked looking girl with bright black eyes which pierce thro & thro, No wonder this poor young man's heart could not withstand them. [18]

Mary Pearson by William Wood, 1798. The curators of Jane Austen's House speculate that Mary may have been a model for Lydia Bennet in Pride & Prejudice, whose original version, First Impressions, was written in 1797, the year following Mary's broken engagement with Henry. Image source: Jane Austen's House CHWJA:JAH437

With both Henry and Eliza now free of other attachments, he soon renewed his proposal. She remained uncertain, though, that she wanted to remarry. On hearing of a mutual acquaintance, a three-time widow who was husband-hunting again, Eliza wrote to Philly, "She certainly pays a great compliment to the married state by wishing to engage in it a fourth time—I am sure I find it difficult enough to determine on a second. . .my impulse in favour of liberty & disfavor of a lord & master, is. . .irresistible." [19]

Henry soon received a promotion to captain and was named adjutant and paymaster of his regiment. In May 1797 Eliza wrote that he "bids fair to possess a considerable share of riches & honours; I believe he has now given up all thoughts of the Church, and he is right for he certainly is not so fit for a parson as a soldier." [20]

Whether Henry's change in outlook began to make him more appealing as a potential husband, or whether the 35-year-old Eliza simply felt that it was time for her to control her own fortune, she now applied to George Austen and John Woodman to dissolve the trust Warren Hastings had set up for her and transfer the money to her own control. Mr. Austen readily agreed, but Woodman hesitated. On applying to Warren Hastings for advice, he received the sharp reply, "As Mme. de Feuillide is desirous of taking the money, which is now in trust with you and Mr. Austen, into her own hands, you certainly ought to comply with her desire." [21]

Woodman finally did so in October. Eliza drew up a will which ensured that her estate would go to the care of her son Hastings, who was subject to debilitating epileptic seizures, and not to any future husband.

These financial matters settled, she gave further consideration to Henry Austen. When he proposed again while on leave in London for the Christmas holidays, she accepted him. She wrote to Warren Hastings,

I have consented to an union with my cousin Captn. Austen who has the honor of being known to you.—He has been for some time in possession of a comfortable income, and the excellence of his heart, temper, & understanding, together with his steady attachment to me, his affection for my little boy, and disinterested concurrence in the disposal of my property, in favor of the latter, have at length induced me to an acquiescence which I have withheld for more than two years. [22]

Henry and Eliza were married in St. Marylebone Parish Church, London, on 31 December 1797. Jane Austen's "outlandish cousin" was now her sister-in-law.

Next time: Incorrigible flirtation, hairbreadth escapes, and lavish parties: Eliza de Feuillide, continued

Last time: Was Jane Austen's aunt a sex worker?: Jane Austen at Home, part 1

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1. Quoted in Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin': The Life and Letters of Eliza de Feuillide, The British Library, 2002, p. 68.
2. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 51. Ultimately de Feuillide did drain Phila of every shilling she had: she lent him her entire capital, £6500, with instructions in her will not to pursue its recovery. Later, Eliza found that it was indeed irrecoverable.
3.  Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', pp. 52–53.
4. Quoted in Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, Second Edition, Cambridge, 2004, p. 57.
5. Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, p. 57.
6. Jane Austen, "Catharine, Or The Bower," in R.W. Chapman, ed., The Works of Jane Austen Vol. VI: Minor Works, reprinted with revisions by B.C. Southam, Oxford University Press, 1975, pp. 197–198 (capitalization modernized here and elsewhere).
7. Susanna Centlivre, The Wonder: A Woman Keeps A Secret, Fifth Edition, Company of Booksellers, pp. 7–8.
8.  Susanna Centlivre, The Wonder, pp. 47–48.
9. Quoted in Elaine Jordan, "Pulpit, Stage, and Novel: 'Mansfield Park' and Mrs. Inchbald’s 'Lovers' Vows.'" NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 20 no. 2, 1987, pp. 138–148. https://doi.org/10.2307/1345874
10. Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814, Ch. XLVIII.
11. Quoted in Jordan, "Pulpit, Stage, and Novel."
12. I'm unable to trace the "fascinated" comment by James Austen-Leigh. It appears in Paula Byrne's Jane Austen and the Theatre (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Liverpool, 2000, p. 23) and Claire Tomalin's Jane Austen: A Life (Knopf, 1997, p. 56), but Byrne gives it no attribution and Tomalin cites Austen-Leigh's Memoir of Jane Austen (1879), in which a full-text search of the digitized editions on HathiTrust fails to find it. James Austen's epilogue to The Wonder is quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, p. 62.
13. Jane Austen, "Henry and Eliza: a novel," in R.W. Chapman, ed., The Works of Jane Austen Vol. VI: Minor Works, reprinted with revisions by B.C. Southam, Oxford University Press, 1975, pp. 35–36.
14. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 47.
15. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 135.
16. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 132.
17. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 169.
18. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, p. 98.
19. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 134.
20. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 139. Henry would later (1816) be ordained as a deacon, and for the next three years serve as a curate in the village of Chawton where his mother and two sisters lived.
21. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 143.
22. Quoted in Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin', p. 151.